Service Engineer as a Friend
Sudden breakdowns have the potential of creating a chaos and if not attended immediately they can turn into a crisis. These are the situations in which, if manufacturer’s services are needed, they are needed at a short notice. And breakdowns do not reckon biological timings. On the contrary they have an uncanny sense of situational preferences: the breakdown occurs when a machine is most needed. You then turn to your ‘friends’ late at night or at odd hours of the day and expect that badly needed support would miraculously arrive.
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A Friend in Need
A sudden refusal of the thermic fluid pump of a Thermopac* to pump any further created a red alert in a textile mill on the outskirts of Madras at 6 p.m. and a hurried call was put through to Thermax’s** Madras office with the hope that someone may be around to arrange for help.
Service Engineer, K Ramaiah was in the process of winding up to rush home to join his wife, waiting to be picked up on way to meeting a social commitment with one of her close friends. Ramaiah, therefore, promised to be at the Mills early next morning. “Loss of production in the remaining part of the 2nd shift and the 3rd shift thereafter would be a big setback and would cause considerable embarrassment if we were to wait till tomorrow” pleaded the calling commercial manager. “All right” said the service engineer, I would be with you in about half an hour.”
Ramaiah got all the details that preceded stoppage of the thermic fluid pump, carried out various checks and came to the conclusion that contamination of thermic fluid had caused its degradation with resultant increase in viscosity and finally the cessation of flow. In the event, there was no way of putting the machine back into operation till the next day. But Ramaiah got the major components dismantled and set the process on for thorough cleaning during the night.
Ramaiah got back to the Mill at 8 A.M. the next morning. He drained the system, flushed it repeatedly, cleared the system of all water, charged fresh supply of thermic fluid, heated the system gradually to allow slow evaporation of residual water and then set the machine on for regular operation. The production loss did occur during the period that the heating system was down but the Mill management also realised that any other short cut applied to save time would have actually meant some major mechanical breakdown with much extended down time. It was good that the mill decided to call Thermax office and the service engineer responded without delay. As Ramaiah said later, “he was welcomed as a VIP and that such emergency calls, though sometimes inconvenient to attend, had their own side benefits.” Being regarded and treated as a ‘friend’ is one of them. Getting the customer emotionally engaged with the company is a much greater reward with long term benefits.
It must be understood, however, that people make such discretionary effort only when they are in elevated state of motivation and it is for the company management— more particularly for the middle managers—to make sure that the employees stay motivated and engaged.
This is one the four blogs in this series apart fro the Preamble. Click on The Technician; The Teacher; The Salesman or Preamble, to reach the relevant blog.
Gopal K Gureja
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*I have used the title ‘service engineer’ in a generic sense for all those who provide on-site technical support irrespective of the official designation they may have.